Elon Musk is the Democrats' latest designated villain.

So far, he hasn't behaved like one.

Democrats and their media allies always need to designate a conservative villain or two, especially when they are out of power. (The same is true of Republicans, though they tend to be less obsessive about it, I think.) Demonizing the elected president himself usually won’t suffice because Americans don’t want to believe they have elected someone evil.

During George W. Bush’s administration Dick Cheney and Karl Rove served as the designated villains (DVs). Bush was portrayed as their stooge. Rush Limbaugh filled in as DV during the Obama years.

The first Trump administration was an exception. Democrats viewed Trump as evil enough to play the villain role more or less by himself. It helped that Trump had lost the popular vote and had squeaked out slim margins in the states that gave him electoral victory.

The strategy might have worked if claims that Trump colluded with Russia had panned out. But they didn’t, so it didn’t.

This time around, Trump carried the popular vote and the 2017 playbook is stale. You can only cry “wolf” (or “devil”) so many times. Once again, therefore, the Democrats need a DV other than the president.

Enter Elon Musk. He’s perfect for the role. Musk is from South Africa and did not become a U.S. citizen until 2002. More importantly, he’s said to be the richest person in the world.

For a party that’s been bulldozed by a populist movement, Elon Musk’s presence in Trump’s orbit is a gift — proof, as far as the Democrats are concerned, that Trump is an oligarch masquerading as a populist.

Musk’s tweets about the compromise continuing resolution (CR) and the quick demise of that CR thereafter gave Democrats and their media allies a great opportunity to pin the villain designation on him. Indeed, they went so far as to claim that Musk, not Trump, is running the MAGA show.

Typical was the reaction of Rep. Richard Neal, a Democrat, who asked:

Can you imagine what the next two years are going to be like if every time that Congress works its will and then there’s a tweet? Or from an individual who has no official portfolio, who threatens members on the Republican side with a primary? And they succumb?

Another Democrat, Sen. Chris Murphy, put an exclamation point on the new narrative when he whined:

We had a deal to avert a shutdown. Musk et al. blew it up because it didn’t help billionaires enough.

What could be better for a party trying to cope with a populist president than to declare that the richest man in the world will be killing bipartisan legislation for the next two years in order to benefit billionaires?

Is there any merit to what Neal and Murphy said? I don’t think so.

Neal’s claim that Republicans “succumbed” to Musk on the CR is ridiculous. Musk has no power over House Republicans. Members backed away from the compromise because, once alerted to what was in the bill, both Trump and the Republican base found they didn’t like it.

And with good reason. As Roger Kimball says, the compromise CR was a 1547-page behemoth full of self-serving giveaways to Congress, plus numerous woke initiatives designed to stymie the incoming Trump administration.

Musk by himself could not have killed the bill. Nor could he credibly have threatened to “primary” anyone for supporting it. Most GOP members have little to fear from a primary. None has anything to fear from a primary desired by Musk but not supported by Trump.

Murphy’s rant is also without merit. As noted, Musk didn’t blow up the bill, he criticized it. Trump blew it up. Nor is any reason to believe that the CR failed because it didn’t help billionaires enough. The CR that later passed isn’t a gift for billionaires.

But let’s put Murphy’s falsehoods aside. Musk, too, misrepresented the bill in some respects. Let’s focus, instead, on whether Musk behaved improperly by denouncing the compromise.

He didn’t. Musk has the absolute right to express on social media his views about legislation the House is about to vote on. It doesn’t matter whether Musk has any “portfolio” — official or unofficial. In a free country, every citizen has the right to opine. The fact that Musk happens to be influential doesn’t lessen that right.

The key point, though, is that Musk didn’t kill the CR. Trump did because it was a bad resolution from a conservative perspective. And the outcome was a relatively happy one — no government shutdown and a much improved CR from a conservative perspective. (It’s true that Trump didn’t get the debt ceiling terminated or substantially extended, as he wished. It remains to be seen whether this was a good outcome.)

To suggest that this scenario casts Musk as co-president is ridiculous. It may also prove self-defeating for the Democrats. The more they credit Musk for Trump’s deeds, and the more they talk about “President Musk”, the likelier it is that Trump will exile Musk, thereby depriving the Democrats of their DV.

That, at least, is what Trump’s first term suggests. And Team Trump is already pushing back against the notion that Musk is co-president.

Nonetheless, the use of Musk as DV is only beginning. Musk’s status as head of DoGE — the “department” of government efficiency, not the leader of medieval Venice — will make him the gift that keeps on giving for the Democrats.

It has already spawned claims that America will be governed by an “oligarchy.” Never mind that the purpose of DoGE — to produce a more efficient government — should not be controversial. And never mind that there is precedent for leaders of major corporations running this sort of commission.

Consider the Private Sector Survey on Cost Control (PSSCC), commonly referred to as the Grace Commission, under President Reagan. It was headed by Peter Grace, head of W.R. Grace and Company. a huge chemical firm and a member of the boards of other corporate giants. It included more than 150 prominent business leaders.

A collection of “oligarchs,” if ever there was one.

Critics of DoGE argue that, given the dealings Musk’s companies have with the government, it will give rise to conflicts of interest. The same complaint was lodged against the Grace Commission.

In modern times, every major firm does lots of business with the federal government. Thus, any government efficiency study in which leading executives of private companies participate will be subject to claims of potential conflict of interest. Yet, who better to conduct efficiency studies than successful executives of major private firms?

If the work of the DoGE ends up favoring inordinately the business interests of Elon Musk, then Americans will have a genuine grievance for Democrats and the media to trumpet. But the Democrats’ need for a DV is immediate. They can’t wait too see whether Musk actually behaves improperly.

He certainly didn’t behave improperly when he focused attention on a bad CR.